


Shinji and Keita's Day of Fun

by keitaiijima



Series: Junior High Moments [11]
Category: Battle Royale - All Media Types, Battle Royale - Takami Koushun
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 05:15:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26760055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keitaiijima/pseuds/keitaiijima
Summary: Shinji reluctantly agrees to spend a day in town with Keita to celebrate a certain someone's birthday. It is probably something he will regret.Note: This is part of a non-linear series all set in the same universe but can also be definitely read independently.
Series: Junior High Moments [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2059632
Comments: 3
Kudos: 5





	Shinji and Keita's Day of Fun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PimpedOutGreenEars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PimpedOutGreenEars/gifts).



> There's not really a plot here but Keita has fun. Shinji might have a little fun. Not much.

Why had he agreed to this? It was actually pretty close to being Shinji Mimura’s worst nightmare. A day out with just him and Keita Iijima.  
Now that he thought about it, he _did_ know why he had reluctantly gone along with this. It was because of Yutaka. Shinji would do almost anything Yutaka asked him, even if it meant making it through his own personal version of Hell.  
Originally, the three of them had planned to spend the whole Saturday together. The keywords as to why Shinji hadn’t immediately rejected the idea was just that; _the three of them_. However, what always happens, happened again. Yutaka caught a nasty cold and had to cancel.  
Ok, sure, these things happen. Shinji was now kind of looking forward to a quiet day at home instead. He had recently obtained some new books on computers from the black market and thought he could safely try out some minor hacking techniques without it being too much of a risk. 

  
Sadly, nether Keita nor Yutaka seemed willing to let him do this.  
As expected, Keita had spent that Friday at school dropping not so subtle hints about how excited he was to be spending the following day alone with his “BFF” (to which Shinji sarcastically asked him “Oh, you made a new friend?”, but the comment had seemed to fly right over Keita’s head).  
Finally, Shinji had to straight out tell him it was _not_ going to happen, and that they should just take a rain check until Yutaka felt better and could join them. The last time he and Keita had spent a day out alone together had after all been a complete disaster. However, he wasn’t sure Keita saw it the same way, so he couldn’t even be bothered to remind him of this. After Shinji told him Saturday’s plans were off, Keita did what he could only assume was an attempt of puppy eyes, with his lower lip quivering pathetically. Of course, it had absolutely no effect.  
  
But Keita had apparently cried to Yutaka about it too, because the other boy called Shinji later that evening. And that call _did_ have an effect, to Shinji’s dismay.  
“Come on, Shinji. You know tomorrow is important to him!” Yutaka sighed, sounding congested. Shinji groaned, laying down on his bed with his eyes closed, knowing he would have to hear more about this.  
“Yeah? Why, it’s his birthday?” It wouldn’t surprise him if he had forgotten this insignificant detail.  
“No,” Yutaka dismissed. “But I’m pretty sure it’s Tobi’s birthday.”  
Shinji frowned, pinching his nose bridge. “Who the hell is Tobi?”  
“Shinji! It’s all he’s talked about for the last three months! Tobi, his rat!”  
“His… What? No. Stop messing with me.” Even when sick, Yutaka obviously didn’t stop trying to get him with weird pranks, Shinji thought.  
“You’re the one messing with me, right?” Yutaka paused to cough, before continuing. “He’s showed us photos of Tobi like, every day, dude. He sleeps in his bed. You even said it’s probably the only thing stupid enough to ever get into bed with Keita. _Remember_?”  
It did sound vaguely familiar. Though, Shinji would casually throw out small insults at Keita frequently enough that he couldn’t remember all of this.  
“Please, Yutaka. Please, just tell me this is a rat he got at the pet store and not off the street –“  
“- Ehh. Kinda? I’m pretty sure he got it from _outside_ the _pet store… - “  
_“Lovey,” Shinji mumbled dryly. “And what, I have to bring _Tobi_ a gift? Bake a cake?”  
Yutaka let out a small laugh at this, causing him to have another coughing fit for a moment. Once composed, he spoke again.  
“Just be nice, yeah? It’s just a few hours. It can’t be that bad!” He sounded like he almost believed it, too.  
_You have no idea,_ Shinji thought, but he forced himself to agree with Yutaka. For some reason, his best friend got along pretty great with Keita, and he probably felt bad letting him down by being the reason why this day would be cancelled. If Shinji going along with the craziness would make Yutaka feel better, then fine. Just this once.

And that was why Shinji waited for Keita at the train station that following day. With zero expectations of any kind of enjoyable time, perhaps he would be pleasantly surprised?  
Or perhaps not, he quickly corrected to himself as he saw Keita’s stupid grinning face coming towards him in a half-jog, late as usual.  
“Heey! Shinji! Man, sorry, I overslept,” he excused himself, panting at the light physical activity he had engaged in when running closer.  
Shinji considered pointing out that oversleeping for an appointment at 1 pm was quite a feat, but he said nothing. Instead, he greeted Keita with a small nod.  
“That’s fine,” he said coldly, not for a second wanting Keita to think he cared about him being on time or not. Looking at the boy a little suspiciously, he tried to find any trace of a rat tail or something sticking out of his pockets. But he saw nothing.  
  
“So… It’s just us, huh?” Shinji said, feeling a small sense of relief that Yutaka had been messing with him about the rat-thing, and that not even Keita was that weird.  
The relief instantly faded when Keita responded by giving him an even wider grin, and reached down into his shoulder bag.  
“Weeeeell… Yeah and no,” he said, clearly wanting to build up some suspense before pulling his hand back out. Shinji felt his heart sink, but did his best to keep a neutral expression. “It’s us… And Tobi! The birthday boy! Like you’d forget, man!”  
Opening his gently closed fist, Keita revealed a small furry creature who seemed oddly calm, sniffing around in his palm. Shinji noted there was no long, disgusting tail attached to it though.  
“The birthday… Rat,” Shinji stated doubtfully, leaning in to study it closer.  
Keita laughed joyfully, shaking his head. “Close! Birthday _hamster._ Guess he’s sorta like a rat with how he always tries to beat me to eating stuff out of the trash and things like that, but…”  
Shinji cursed Yutaka silently for making him believe Keita had picked up an actual rat up from a street corner, and then thought how sad it was he had no problem believing that scenario in the first place.  
“Gotcha. So us and Tobi out for a walk? Maybe we could go somewhere with no people-“  
“- Tobi wants to go to the petting zoo!” Keita quickly interrupted him, placing Tobi in his shirt pocket, allowing him to peak out. “He likes seeing big animals and stuff! And then we’re going to the fair in Takamatsu, it’s the big thing this weekend, you know!”  
  
Shinji had hoped they could do their best to avoid being seen by people; he didn’t know what was worst, being seen with Keita or with his pet hamster. At least he didn’t have the hamster on a leash to proudly show it off, which was another thing Shinji could easily imagine happening.  
Trying not to groan, his lips were drawn in a narrow line.  
“Uh huh. Sure. Are you even allowed in petting zoos anymore, though?”  
Keita sighed, giving a small shrug. “Yeah. Just not that… _one_ particular one. I’ve never been to this one before, so it’s not like they know me there!”  
_If they did know you, they’d be sure to ban you too,_ Shinji thought, but again kept quiet. He had a feeling he would be biting his tongue a lot today, keeping his distain for the boy to become _too_ obvious. Instead, he followed Keita onto the train, his eyes travelling down to his pocket, where Tobi seemed to look curiously back up on him too.  
_This will be a long day…_

The petting zoo Keita had set his heart on was located between Shiroiwa and Takamatsu, so they got off at one of the first stops. Keita had looked at the wrong navigation settings on how to get there from the station though, and it turned out the “ten minute walk” had really been a ten minute _drive,_ which led them to know be walking for closer to an hour to reach the farm. Shinji didn’t generally mind physical activity at all, but the extra time with Keita sure was a bummer. Especially since Keita didn’t shut up during this time, and Shinji had to listen to everything from the changes of the local restaurant’s pizza menu (and why these changes were _outrageous_ ) to how Keita was convinced a girl in 9-A had a crush on him because she had asked him if he would let her have the last coke in the cafeteria last week (to which Keita had responded no, anyway).  
After the first five minutes of the walk Shinji had already stopped listening, only giving general responses of “Mhm”, “Yeah”, “Wow”, “Then what?”. In his head he was thinking about the basketball game he had the upcoming weekend, and what kind of strategy the team would benefit from. His thoughts were interrupted by Keita’s loud announcement of: “We’re here!”

The arrival of their destination would have been obvious if Shinji had paid any kind of attention, both due to the smell and because of the sign that said “Zooper Fun Petting Zoo”.  
Shinji really doubted how _zooper fun_ it could be, but at least the animals might distract Keita from rambling so much.  
“Here we are,” he repeated, his tone a big contrast to Keita’s enthusiastic one. As they went around the farm, he found himself confused as to why Keita even liked it so much. They were from the countryside after all, so how great was it really to see _more_ sheep, cows and horses? Heck, if they asked nicely, surely anyone with farm animals in Shiroiwa would let them come pet them too. Yet Keita acted like this was Disneyworld and he was just about to go on Space Mountain. He had Tobi in his hands again now, showing the hamster all the bigger animals. It was hard to tell if Tobi was enjoying himself or not, but Keita insisted he did.  
“It’s his best birthday ever! Look at his tail go!” he said happily.  
“DIdn’t you get him a few months ago? This is his only birthday ever,” Shinji pointed out, raising a brow as he tried to see any sign of Tobi’s supposed happiness. “And he doesn’t even have a tail!”  
Either Keita didn’t hear him, or he pretended not to, because he set off running towards the pigs.  
“Hurry, Shinji!” he called out. “I have to fart, and the pigs will maybe camouflage the smell!”  
Shinji was in no rush to follow him, and made sure to take very slow, short steps.  
_Wonder how much I have to pay the other guys to pretend they can’t remember Keita at all on Monday_ , he thought, unsure if he could handle this for the rest of ninth grade.

The pig’s sty smelled almost as bad as Keita’s room, and Shinji had quickly excited to get back for fresh air. Besides, one of the pigs had grunted angrily when Keita attempted to let Tobi ride it, so it seemed like a good idea to get out of there before a fight broke up. Hell if Shinji would cut in to help him out at all, that’s for sure. Not that he was bitter or anything.  
They had to make somewhat of a detour to get to the goats, as Keita was not allowed within twenty feet of the alpacas residing nearby. He went on and on about why this was the case, and how he had been “framed”, but Shinji once again shut it all out. Keita’s voice became nothing but background noise as he hummed a favourite tune inside his head. In fact, he found himself almost excited for the fair, where there would at least be _something_ to do.

  
Shinji had honestly thought the change of scene would help the situation and maybe make him even enjoy himself a little bit. Boy, was he wrong.  
When they arrived at the fair it was already late afternoon as Keita had wasted hours with those damn farm animals. The lights, the music, the happy faces… It was all such a big contrast to how Shinji felt on the inside, which somehow made it harder to endure.  
“Everyone here’s like six years old, Iijima,” he complained, despite the fact that several teenagers were also hanging around, lining up for the attractions and games.  
“Easier to beat for the prizes, then!” Keita countered, not looking like Shinji’s disapproval affected him. “Anything you want me to win for you? Look, they got those pink horse plushies!”  
Shinji _did_ look, but somehow still failed to be really drawn in by the ugly stuffed animals.  
“Absolutely not. Let’s just buy some hot dogs and get out of here really quick-“

Keita had already run off in the short time Shinji had taken his eyes off him.  
_Seriously, it’s like walking around with a toddler. If I care about him disappearing, I’d have to make him wear one of those backpacks with leashes.  
_This might be his chance to escape. He could tell Keita he had lost him in the crowd and searched for hours but eventually given up. Or, he didn’t have to justify himself to Keita at all, and could just never speak to him again after today. That sounded pretty great, too.  
As he turned around to head out the way they came, Keita unfortunately spotted him from the stand he had approached.

  
“Shinji! Over here! Me and Tobi are gonna win you some chocolates!” he grinned, giving a thumbs up. Shinji thought he saw Tobi raise his little paw in a similar gesture from where he once again was peeking out from Keita’s pocket, but he might just be losing his mind.  
Sighing, Shinji shoved his hands into his pockets and joined him.  
“Yeah? Not really much of a sweet tooth,”, he commented dismissively, glancing at the game. It was a wheel of fortune, and Keita had placed down money on a couple of spaces, clearly determined to win something.  
“More for me then. Tobi’s gonna beg for some, but we gotta try to resist, it’ll kill him,” Keita said seriously, his eyes glued to the wheel as the woman working the stand spun it swiftly.  
“He can’t beg. He’s a hamster,” Shinji pointed out, his patience with this whole thing wearing thin.  
“Yeah, that’s the spirit! Don’t let him get to you!” Keita nodded eagerly, eyes still at the wheel. It had slowed down and finally stopped, landing just a couple of spaces away from the ones Keita had put his money on.  
“Maaaaaaaaaaan!” Keita groaned loudly, grabbing onto his short hair dramatically at this defeat. “Can you believe this bad luck?!”  
“I can, actually,” Shinji mumbled, feeling like this whole day was proof of his own pretty horrible luck. Out of every town in Japan, did he have to be born in the same one as this guy?

Accepting his loss, Keita guided Shinji through the crowd of people, seemingly on the lookout for something specific. At least he did have a rare look of determination to him, Shinji thought.  
Eventually, Keita stopped, his eyes lighting up as he saw what he had been looking for.  
“There’s a sure way to cheer us up, Shinji!” he beamed, pointing a finger to Shinji’s least favourite attraction; the tea cups.  
“I don’t need cheering up,” Shinji insisted casually. “And those thing will make me sick, anyway.”  
“Me too!” Keita eagerly grabbed Shinji’s arm and pulled him along, making a beeline towards the ride. “Isn’t it great?!”

Before they got on the ride, Keita spent about ten minutes asking the operator if Tobi was “tall enough to ride”. The poor operator seemed mainly confused by the question, not really sure how to give a proper response to it. They did ultimately agree Tobi would probably be safe as long as Keita held onto him for the duration of the ride.  
“This is getting beyond ridiculous,” Shinji snapped, unable to keep everything bottled up.  
“I know, he really didn’t get it, did he?” Keita agreed, sighing as he sat down into the brightest coloured tea cup. “He looked at me like I was crazy for caring about Tobi’s safety! Guess he just doesn’t have a hamster himself.”  
“Guess not,” Shinji agreed, having no strength to clear up that this was _not_ what he had been referring to.

The tea cups were as horrendous as he remembered from his last go at them several years ago. It felt more like some new torture device rather than something people would choose to do for fun. It didn’t help that the operator kept walking around and spinning the cups harder during the ride, causing Shinji to add him to the list of people he would no longer be nice to. In fact, he might be even higher on the list than Keita.  
Shinji staggered out of the attraction when it finally came to a stop, turning to Keita with a tense expression.  
“You really like that?” he needed to know.  
Keita sighed deeply, an almost serene smile on his face. “Yeah. It’s like when mom lets me suck out all the air of helium balloons,” he explained, without really clarifying anything at all. “What ride do you wanna do next?!”

The ride Shinji really wanted to do was the train ride home, but he looked around the area anyway to humour Keita.  
“I dunno. Maybe… Are there bumper cars anywhere?” the idea of ramming a car into Keita seemed kind of tempting.  
Keita rubbed his chin thoughtfully, also surveying the location.  
“I can’t see any, dude. But I see something even more fun… Let’s get our faces painted!”  
“Our what…?”  
Shinji followed Keita’s line of vision, to his horror realizing Keita wanted them to get in line after a group of six young girls who were happily chatting about what kind of butterfly colours they were going to get painted on their faces.  
“Absolutely not, Keita. Nope. What would you even get done?” Shinji asked, immediately regretting asking this question as Keita didn’t even skip a beat before answering:  
“Pirate!”  
  
Shinji unwillingly joined Keita in line for the face painting, but kept insisting he would not let anyone touch his face. The “artist”, or whatever you would call them, were painted up too; as a freaky-looking clown. Shinji didn’t trust him.  
“Maybe he’ll paint a little eye patch on Tobi to match me? That’ll look good with his golden fur, huh?!” Keita rambled. “If it’s safe for humans, it’s safe for hamsters, right?”  
Was Shinji supposed to give a serious answer to this? Why would he know? He merely shrugged and mumbled a “probably”.  
Turns out the clown wasn’t sure about the effect of face paint on hamsters either, and they ended up giving Tobi a pass.  
_Lucky guy,_ Shinji thought. He had to hold the small creature when Keita got his pirate face on, and it was almost doing well, until Tobi relieved his bladder in his hand.  
“You’re just like your owner,” Shinji whispered angrily. “Impossible to bring anywhere…”  
  


Keita ended up beyond thrilled at his pirate-face, complete with an eyepatch, a moustache and beard, and red bandana with a skull symbol covering his forehead.  
“Amazing! Now I totally get why chicks are into make-up and stuff. I feel a lot more confident!”  
“I guess covering your face is an improvement,” Shinji muttered, returning Tobi to Keita’s hands, and subtly wiping his own hands on Keita’s sleeves. Keita seemed to think it was some kind of warm, friendly gesture, and smiled softly to him.  
“Your turn, Shinji! What motive are you gonna get?” he asked, nudging Shinji towards the seat, which the clown was patiently waiting next to.  
“No way. I told you I’m not doing this,” Shinji argued, jumping slightly as the clown beeped a small horn he pulled out of his pocket as a way to tell him to hurry up.  
“Awww. C’mon, man. If anyone can pull off this paint stuff, it’s _you_ , right? Your face can pull off anything!” Keita insisted.  
Damn, even from Keita, flattery did work. Shinji couldn’t help but grin, and before he knew it, he found himself in the dreaded chair.  
_How did this happen_ …?  
The clown asked him what style he would like, and Keita was immediately full of suggestions, ranging from princess to giraffe to mime.  
“No,” Shinji shook his head. “Make me a cat.”  
It was the first thing to pop into his head, and maybe the clown would let him get away with just some whiskers and a black nose or something.

The clown did _not_ let him get away with just some whiskers and a painted nose. He made Shinji’s face white as snow, before giving him darker cat features from chin to eyes. Shinji gave a strained smile when looking into the small mirror on the table next to him, and just wanted to get home as fast as possible to wash it off. Keita however, was full of praise.  
“What an artist! Right?! If I didn’t know you, I’d totally believe you were a real cat. But like, a sexy one,” he grinned, patting Shinji’s back.  
Shinji raised a brow. “Obviously a sexy one,” he agreed. “I guess it’s true I can pull off anything.”  
It was starting to get dark at this point, and Keita stretched his arms into the air.  
“There’s just one more thing I wanna do before we go, okay? I really, really, really want to win us something! Like… A little token from our BFF fun day,” he said, sighing as he looked around for a likely win.  
Shinji wanted to tell him not to bother, but instead found himself looking around to see if any of the stands of games seemed like one Keita could somehow win at. Oh no, this was bad. He was trying to help him.

“Oh, look! That one has a bunch of kids ready to play. I can definitely beat them!” Keita suddenly exclaimed, having discovered some sort of racing game. He hurried over to grab one of the seats available, competing again three children who none seemed to be older than six or so.  
It would be pretty pathetic if he lost this, Shinji thought. _Even for him_.  
It turned out to be a water gun race, where you aim the water stream into a small hole to push your player forwards. Keita did luckily have more coordination and steadiness of hand than the actual children, although it did end up being a close race. When he won, he jumped up on the small seat, crying out in happiness and surprise.  
“I did it! I never win anything! Shinji, I did it!” he cheered.  
Shinji chuckled slightly, scratching the back of his head awkwardly as one of the girls who had been part of the race too burst into tears. “Yeah… You sure got them.”  
  
The teenage girl in charge of the game handed Keita his prize; two keychains, each with a tiny squirrel plushie attached to them. One was blue and one was purple.  
“For you and your friend,” the girl explained. Shinji thought she seemed to give him a rather flirtatious smile, and he figured this was a prize more aimed at him for being so irresistible.  
Keita completely missed that the woman only had eyes for Shinji, and happily accepted the prize.  
“Thanks! I was gonna give it to my bestie anyway, but it’ll be awesome we have matching ones!” he glowed.  
“That’s really cute,” the girl said, now batting her eyelashes at Shinji more obviously, but he had already become bored of her and decided he was not interested.  
“Yeah, he’s adorable,” Shinji agreed dryly, turning Keita around to prepare for them to leave. “Have a good day.”

“Give me your keys!” Keita gently demanded as they headed towards the exit. “We need to get these on right away. Do you want the blue or purple one?”  
“Blue, I guess,” Shinji replied, digging through his pockets for his keys. He should have just told Keita he left them at home, but in all honestly, the squirrel was kind of cute. It reminded him of Tobi.  
Shit, whatever was happening to him really wasn’t good.  
“Here,” he said, handing Keita his keys which at the moment were only bundled together, but with no key-chain attached. Keita quickly attached the new one, and happily did the same with his purple one.  
“As long as we got these, our bonds cannot be broken!” he declared. Shinji didn’t remember to agree on this, but he accepted the keys when handed back to him without any further debate.

Maybe it was the knowledge that the day was about to come to an end which made him a little more tolerant of Keita right now. Shinji sure hoped that was it. He could see the exit now, and it was like a heavily light pulling him towards it. So close…  
He felt something tap his shoulder, and knew right away it must be Keita. Whatever he had spotted now, Shinji really wanted no part of it, but he gritted his teeth.  
“Yeah?” he asked, turning his head to glance at the other boy.  
“Shinji… There’s a photo booth!” Keita pointed to their left. Sure enough, there was.  
“Yeah. Very nice,” Shinji nodded, knowing of course what would come next.  
“We _need_ to take a photo! A BFF memory photo of our day!”  
“I thought the key chain was our BFF memory of the day?” Shinji asked, wishing he would stop adding “BFF” to everything he said.  
“No! That’s our _token._ This will be our memory. It’s so different,” Keita insisted. “Not that I’ll ever forget because it’s been so much fun but I wanna hang it on my fridge! And in my room. And in my parent’s room.”  
  
Shinji figured at least he didn’t have to hang it up anywhere, so maybe it couldn’t hurt. Entering the booth with Keita, he was once again reminded on the fact that he was painted like a feline, and would have to take the train home like this afterwards. Maybe he could find a restroom to wipe some off.  
“Okay, it doesn’t look like it has any fun design… Maybe we can add stickers and stuff after,” Keita mused, trying to navigate the camera. He adjusted both his own and Shinji’s position, and put Tobi up on his shoulder to include him.  
“Say “birthday boy”!” he beamed, before repeating the phrase, emphasising the last part of “boy” as to really drag it out. Shinji gave a small smile, saying nothing, but noticing from the corner of his eye that Tobi actually _did_ seem to wiggle what little tail he had. Weird.  
  
Keita added some “fun” designs to the photo once he had done a few takes to get an acceptable one; this included a little party hat on Tobi’s head and some glitter letters spelling out True Love under his and Shinji’s faces. It sure was something.  
“And now, as a final touch!” Keita said with a wink, pulling out a pen from his shoulder bag. Shinji watched somewhat intrigued, as Keita doodled something onto the photograph. Once satisfied with his work, he revealed it to Shinji. Next to them, Keita had drawn a little stick figure smiling happily.  
“It’s Yutaka!” he explained. “So he’s here with us too! And like, he’ll know we missed him and stuff.”  
At this, Shinji’s lips formed into an honest smile, as he looked softly at the photo.  
“Yeah… That’s really nice, Iijima,” he replied, without a trace of sarcasm. Yutaka would have undoubtedly made the day better, but now he wondered if it really had been so bad, after all.

* * *

  
“Soo… Was it as bad as you feared? “  
Yutaka’s face grinned at Shinji, as they sat down in the cafeteria that following Monday. Shinji found it a little suspicious how Yutaka always magically recovered right after narrowly escaping Keita’s wacky weekend ideas, but he knew on a rational level that it was really just a coincidence. Even though right now he kind of felt like teasingly calling Yutaka out on it to give him a hard time.  
“It sucked,“ he replied simply instead. “At one point I had to hold Tobi up so that he could pet a goat with his dumb little claw. I can’t even make this shit up…“  
Yutaka laughed loudly, but the laughter faded out as something near the floor caught his eye. Shinji’s keys had gotten caught on the zipper of the outer pocket on his bag, and the small squirrel keychain was clearly visible in the opening.  
_Dammit_. Shinji had forgotten to remove it over the weekend and only realized when he had already locked the door that morning.  
  
Without any hesitation, Yutaka picked it up and studied it curiously for a second. Looking like he quickly put two and two together, a big grin again appeared on his face.  
“And _this_ … Is new?“ he asked teasingly.  
Shinji snatched the keys back, hoping his expression didn’t reveal his light panic. No way Yutaka could know he kept something _Keita_ gave him.  
“It’s… From Ikumi. She won it at some school even ages ago. I just forgot about it until I found it again yesterday - “  
As if on cue, Keita popped up out of no where like a damn Jack-in-the-box toy, causing Shinji to jump slightly as he loudly shouted a “Hey, guys!“.  
Keita’s eyes were also instantly drawn to the keychain Shinji was clutching onto; Shinji attempted to silently beg him through eye contact _not_ to make a big deal out of it, but it was already too late. Keita let out a cheerful cry.  
“Shinji! You got yours on still too?! Same! Look! Matchies!” Proudly, Keita pulled his own keys out of the pockets of his uniform. Somehow his keychain was already quite stained with some unknown substance. “Our BFF charms! Sorry, Yutaka, I only won them as like, a set…”  
  


Yutaka was trying very hard to stifle his laughter, but the expression on Shinji’s face made it particularly hard.  
“Hey, dude. Don’t worry about it! Makes sense it’s a set of two, right? It is… A BFF charm after all!” he beamed to Shinji as he said this.  
Shinji himself quietly groaned, slouching down over the table as Keita squeezed down next to him. Something about the glimmer in Yutaka’s eye told him he would not hear the end of this for a while.  
And the worst part of it was… How he really didn’t even hate that ugly squirrel keychain. He hoped Keita wouldn’t end up growing on him, too.  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Tobi had fun too.


End file.
